The ball breaks at the top of the D. Eyes widen, time slows, glory beckons. A shard of light falls on a ponderous-looking monobrow. Anns…

We arrive at base camp at Coldham’s Common Leisure Centre for the day’s early kick-off. Four minutes later and breathing heavily we’ve ascended the steep summit at the south-west corner of the pitch, and commence our poultry-based series of warm-ups.

Our erstwhile captain has announced pre-match that he will be deploying himself as more of a player-manager today. ‘I believe in you,’ he says, before lighting a large cigar, using a substitute as a footrest and throwing the clipboard in the general direction of one H. Chalk.

Hockey was then played. Some relatively unfit men chased around after some other relatively unfit men. Passes were made, balls were transferred, calf muscles were strained. ‘SYNERGY!’ shouted Captain Cooper, lying prone on the bench, his breath smelling of whisky.

Fifteen minutes into the game Mike Karran’s ‘Heat Map’ was displaying prodigious activity down the left hand side of Mill Road. Average speed an eye-catching twenty kilometres an hour as he flew along on his bike, only fifteen minutes late for the game.

However, cometh the twenty-five minute mark, cometh the man. Spikey Michael evaded a clutch of grey-haired defenders, looked up and saw a lone Menzies doubtless still in the opposition D from a previous attack. Duly found, Menzies dispatched it into the top corner of the net on the reverse / deflected it into an open goal from four yards. I know what I believe.

HALF-TIME: Cooper, now face-down on the subs’ bench, implores us to attack space, sounding like an increasingly vague Jean-Luc Picard.

Thirty-five minutes to hold onto a slender one-nil lead. Could we, notoriously-shaky-holders-of-slender-leads, hold on to this slender lead? Well, is Coldham’s Common astroturf pitch six-to-eight metres above sea level, depending on which end you’re playing at? Yes it is. And yes we could. Matthew Puddlefoot puddled, Chris Walsh walshed, at one point Jon Mann manned so hard that the umpire had to tell to please stop, because there were children present. All we needed was one more goal…

And then… Foot…whistle…short corner…

Even the birds had fallen silent. The ball rolls inexorably to the top of the D. Was someone in the distance playing ‘The Last Post’ on a bugle? Possibly not but that’s how I remember it. They say about Tom Anns that, ‘He was never the most talented, never the fastest and certainly never the strongest…’ end quote.

His stick arcs downwards, like an executioner’s blade. All twenty-two players braced for impact. The second Krakatoa.

Swish.

As the Cambridge Evening News would later call it, ‘One of the finest air shots we’ve seen in thirty-five years of reporting.’

All that was left was the final whistle. The final whistle and those eyes. I’ll never forget the look in those eyes. Like a sad dog trying to understand astronomy.